Paraguayan Guaraní reduplication: a novel prosodic analysis

Abstract

In contexts of reduplication in Paraguayan Guaraní [gug, Tupí-Guaraní, Paraguay], two syllables are copied.
The position of the reduplicant is variable, but morphophonologically conditioned. With data from apparent
base-reduplicant mismatches, I evaluate three possible analyses of reduplication. Contrary to previous
accounts of reduplication in Tupí-Guaraní (Everett & Seki, 1985; Rose, 2005; Hamidzadeh, 2013), I argue
that the reduplicant in Paraguayan Guaraní is best analyzed as an infix: specifically, a suffix to the stressed
vowel. Reduplication in Paraguayan Guaraní is sensitive to stress assignment, which is determined by the
prosodic structure, and the reduplicant is a disyllabic suffix to a stressed vowel. The vowel to which the
reduplicant attaches may lie within any prosodic word: therefore, both attested and unattested types of
variability in reduplicant position fall out from this account. I additionally propose that synchronic variation
is evidence of an ongoing reanalysis of the position of the reduplicant in Paraguayan Guaraní from a suffix to
the stressed vowel towards a suffix to the prosodic word, in line with free suffix order in the language.